Bill Ward on Wolves

BLACK SABBATH drummer Bill Ward has posted the following message on his web site under the heading "The Objectification of the American Wolf":

"Last night while watching TV, I heard President Bush approving of the newest Republican ad, I guess in part, to further admonish John Kerry. I have no public opinion on either Bush's tactics or Kerry's tactics, however, I feel outraged that wolves were used for this ad to symbolize terrorists via/and/or to play upon man's fear of wolves now and through the centuries.

What a cheap shot. I'm appalled by this utterly disrespectful attitude towards one of the most charismatic animals on Earth. I find this ad highly inappropriate and numbing. The wolf is part of America's heritage and landscape, and to use this animal with apparently no conscious respect for it is degrading. I resent that the current administration would use these incredible animals in its verbal brawl with Kerry."

The wolf is one of my favorite animals if not my most favorite, their hunting is efficient, their night howls are magnanimous and ethereal to hear, their packs are very efficient and organized, and the wolf is a very special animal that serves as a keen metaphor for a wild and free noble spirit. It's a shame to see how these animals are so shamelessly slandered and ridiculed. These creatures to me stand for all that is great in this world and all that we should strive for.

There once were day's where these creatures were embraced by old cultures as a totem animal (many Native American tribes did, as did the Celts and the Norse men, actually most pagans did) and then there came a day where they were feared for they hunted livestock (from what I can tell this was about 1000 A.D and it came with the Christians), now they are feared because they are untamed (and we are still Christian) and as I once read somewhere else, "the wolf represents something better than man in these times, their small packs are more efficient than man and man fears that which is better than him." Fuck humans and their self-righteous attitude, fuck mankindís urge to be at the center of the universe. Praise to Bill Ward for saying what he did.

Itís a shame that this animal is persecuted to near extinction in so many parts of the world today. Here is a big FUCK YOU mankind! From what I can discern the Christians still hate the wolf because of the symbol it was to the old pagan world, which they continually seek to destroy and wipe from the memory of history. The wolf is everything Christians are not.

Wolfbane

100% agree with phantasm. Nothing much to add to his arguement other than my disgust for that ad. "Wolves are evil and have connections to satan because they killed one of my sheep" is a common image of wolves by christianity. Christianity liked to use wolves as "Satan's incarnate" on earth to this day in some churches. Another reason to get rid of the plague known as Judeo-Chrisitanity for it's ignorance and intolerance.

"...Wolves live in small groups of 6 to 12 or more individuals called packs. The pack is an extended kin group consisting of a mated pair, one or more juveniles from the previous year who do not become sexually mature until the second year, and several nonbreeding related adults.

The pack has two social heirarchies, one headed by an alpha female and one headed by an alpha male, the leader of the pack to whom all other memebers defer. Below the alpha males is the beta male, closely related, often a full brother, who has to defend his position against pressures from other males below.

Mating within the pack is rigidly controlled. The alpha male (occasionally the beta male) mates with the alpha female. She prevents lower ranking females from mating with the alpha and other males, while the alpha male inhibits mating attempts by other males. Thus each pack has one reproducing pair and one litter of pups each year. These pups are reared cooperatively by all members of the pack. At low wolf densities, some packs may rear two litters of pups a year (Ballard et al. 1987).

The size of a wolf population in a region is governed by the size of the packs, which hold exclusive areas. Regulation of pack size is achieved by events within the pack that influence the amount of food available to each wolf. The food supply itself does not affect births and deaths, but the social structure that leads to an unequal distribution of food does. The reproducing pair, the aplha female and the alpha male, has priority for food; they, in effect, are independent of the food supply. The subdominant animals, male and female, with little reproductive potential, are affected most seriously. At high densities the alpha female will expel other females from the pack. Other individuals may leave voluntarily. Unless these animals have an opportunity to settle successfully in a new territory and form a new pack, they fail to survive.

The social pack, then, becomes important in population regulation. As the number of wolves increases, the size of the pack increases. Individuals are expelled or leave, and the birth rate relative to the population declines because most sexually mature females do not reproduce. Overall the percentage of reproducing females declines. When the population of wolves is low in a region, sexually mature females and males leave the pack, settle in an unoccupied habitat, and establish their own packs with one reproducing female. More rarely, the pack may produce two litters instead of one litter in a year (Ballard et al. 1987, Van Ballenberghe 1983). But at very low densities, females may have difficulty locating males to establish a pack and so fail to reproduce or even survive. (For details on social regulation of population size in wolves see Mech 1970, Zimen 1978, Fritts and Mech 1981, Ballard et al. 1987.)"

This part did not make alot of sense to me. Why would the alpha male allow the beta male to breed with the alpha female?

Since they are full brothers, genetically they are very similar, so the alpha female has nevertheless still chosen a prime mate. There are many scenarios in which such an occurrence could be plausible, but in all likelihood since the rivalry for the "alpha" position is ongoing the designations between "alpha" and "beta" could easily undergo change, even if the top positions remain in a single family. Also, if there are two litters of pups in a single year, the probability for survivorship for the greatest numbers of pups would be highest if they are not from the same father (i.e. one may carry genes which confer for greater adaptation to cold than the other--if the alpha female doesn't know which one of the brothers carries this gene, then it is is her best interests to mate with both such that some of her offspring do indeed survive).